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From: cberlet@igc.apc.org (NLG Civil Liberties Committee)
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Subject: Re: The Newmanites, NAP and Fulani
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Date: 12 Dec 92 02:31:00 GMT
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/* Written 9:15 pm Dec 8, 1992 by cberlet in igc:publiceye */
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Clouds Blur the Rainbow:
The Other Side of the
New Alliance Party
Copyright 1987 PRA
Printing downloaded copies is forbidden.
For a spiral bound printed version
and a collection of related articles
and documents, send $3.50 to:
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Clouds Blur the Rainbow:
The Other Side of the
New Alliance Party
By Chip Berlet
December, 1987
PART 1
What is the New Alliance Party?
The New Alliance Party describes itself as a
Black-led, women-led, multi-racial, pro-gay
independent political organization. Its most
outspoken critics call it an opportunistic
political movement controlled by an unethical
therapy cult whose white male guru once led his
followers into an affiliation with neo-fascist
cult leader Lyndon LaRouche.
The actual nature and history of the New Alliance
Party is complex, controversial, and ultimately a
matter of individual perspective and judgment.
The controversy surrounding NAP, however, is
seldom discussed with candor. With the New
Alliance Party already well-established in
several cities, including New York and Boston,
and with newly-opened national headquarters in
Chicago, a discussion of the group is long
overdue. To discuss NAP without reference to the
political milieu in which it operates is
impossible. This report attempts to seriously
analyze the history, activities and internal
dimensions of NAP in the context of its work in
the American progressive political community.
This analysis is highly critical of the role of
NAP within that community, but is not an attempt
to bait the organization on the basis of its
publicly-espoused political views.
Current NAP Activities
In May of 1985 the New Alliance Party held a
national founding convention in Chicago. The
significance of the event is blurred by the fact
that its own history dates the original founding
of the New Alliance Party as 1979. The
chairperson elected at the 1985 Chicago meeting
was Emily Carter, an organizer from Jackson,
Mississippi who joined the New Alliance Party in
New York in 1981. She calls herself a "former
organizer, now therapist."
When the New Alliance Party moved its national
headquarters to Chicago, it came with a related
"medical and therapeutic center." In fact,
wherever the New Alliance Party has a major
organizing effort underway, there is a related
"therapy" group reaching out to persons with
progressive politics who are also seeking
emotional or psychological counseling. The
therapy groups use a technique they call "Social
Therapy" or "Crisis Normalization" designed to
provide "immediate help for the everyday crisis
situations that happen to everyone." Both the
political organization and the therapy institutes
make a point to involve persons of color, gay men
and lesbians, and political radicals.
Closely allied with the New Alliance Party is the
Rainbow Alliance and the Rainbow Lobby. That the
slogans of the New Alliance Party, Rainbow
Alliance and the Rainbow Lobby tend to reflect a
progressive political framework is not
questioned. Here for example are some of their
slogans and issues:
*** Put teeth back into Civil Rights laws
*** Repeal Gramm-Rudman
*** Support the Fair Elections bill introduced by
Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.)
*** Seek legislation that would "protect the
democratic rights of gays and all Americans."
One flyer explains:
"The Rainbow Lobby is fighting for grand jury
reform, affordable public housing and Congolese
liberation from the human rights abuses of the
Mobutu dictatorship....The Rainbow Lobby is
fighting against the death penalty, against aid
for the C.I.A. supported contra terrorists and
against arming South African supported
mercenaries in Angola. And the Rainbow Lobby is
exposing the Right's misuse of federal funds for
AIDS. "
The New Alliance Party moved its national
headquarters to Chicago to be closer to Minister
Louis Farrakhan, The Rev. Jesse Jackson and Mayor
Harold Washington, according to NAP chairwoman
Emily Carter. The office is located on Chicago's
north side (in the 44th Ward), and fundraisers
are already soliciting support for the "Rainbow."
The NAP-related Chicago Center for Crisis
Normalization is open and another therapy center
is planned for the west side. NAP organizers have
been recruiting in some sectors of the Black and
progressive political community for almost five
years, and have a presence in several Chicago
colleges.
In New York the New Alliance Party offers a free
legal clinic in Harlem, sponsors lectures, and
publishes its newspaper, the . discusion
groups are held in Chicago, Illinois; Jackson,
Mississippi; Long Island, New York; Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania; Washington, D.C. and Boston,
Massachusetts.
The New Alliance Party maintains regional and
state offices in: Alaska, Arizona, California
(Oakland and Los Angeles), Colorado, Connecticut,
Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas,
Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan (Ann Arbor and
Detroit), Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New
Jersey, New Hampshire, New York (Albany, New York
City and Buffalo), North Carolina, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont
and Washington, D.C.
Fred Newman and the Historical Roots of NAP
The history of the New Alliance Party starts
with a history of its primary theoretician, Dr.
Fred Newman. In 1968 Newman and several followers
formed "IF....THEN", a political collective in
New York City. "IF....THEN" prided itself on its
anarchistic and confrontational approach to
organizing and consciousness-raising. During the
early 1970's Newman and his followers established
a group called Centers for Change in New York
City. Centers for Change (CFC) was characterized
by a more introspective approach to political
organizing. CFC described itself as:
"...a collective of liberation cenu jD including;
a school for children, ages 3 to 7; a community
oriented therapeutic and dental clinic located in
the Bronx; and a press (CFC Press) operating out
of the CFC offices....Also, the Community Media
Project; (an) information service for the people
of the upper west side.... "
While involved with CFC, Newman and others in his
circle began developing a unique perspective
within the evolving theory of radical psychology.
This movement attracted attention and debate in
progressive circles; Newman, however, soon
branched off from the mainstream of the radical
psychology movement and eventually developed a
theory of "social therapy". By 1973 CFC was
offering therapy and counseling at its drop-in
center.
At the same time, another New York political
organizer, Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., was also
espousing controversial psychological theories,
and Newman began to examine LaRouche's writings
on psychology and economics which were appearing
in published collections of Marxist analysis.
Lyndon LaRouche in 1973 was the leader of the
National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC), a
Marxist political organization based in New York
City. LaRouche, using the name Lyn Marcus, had
led the Labor Caucus of the Students for a
Democratic Society (SDS) until SDS voted to expel
LaRouche and his followers in 1969. The
controversy inside SDS arose when the SDS Labor
Caucus under LaRouche called for support of
striking members of New York City's teacher's
union. A key union issue was opposition to
community control of schools in New York City--a
demand of community leaders which had the support
of many Black parents. The union's opposition to
community control of schools was widely perceived
in the progressive political community as having
racist overtones. After being expelled from SDS,
LaRouche created the National Caucus of Labor
Comittees, which in 1973 had at least 1,000
members nationwide.
Newman says he first made contact with Lyndon
LaRouche's forces within the National Caucus of
Labor Committees (NCLC) in October of 1973. In
January of 1974 Newman's organization, Centers
for Change (CFC), published a newsletter which called for the organization of
leftist political cadres and relied heavily on
psychoanalytic terminology. LaRouche's theories
were in many ways similar to those espoused by
Newman, and in June of 1974, Newman led almost 40
CFC members into an official political alliance
with LaRouche and the National Caucus of Labor
Committees (NCLC).
Newman's Alliance with LaRouche
Even NAP supporters concede that Newman and some
of his followers worked for a time under the
political leadership of LaRouche. What keeps this
aspect of the controversy alive is what critics
feel are misrepresentations regarding the
character of the relationship and the nature of
the LaRouche organization at the time of the
alliance. NAP's position is stated in a letter
circulated by its supporters under the name "The
Committee to Set the Record Straight:"
"Five years prior to NAP's founding, a handful of
activists, five of whom now sit on NAP's
40-member national Executive Board, joined the
National Caucus of Labor Committees, then a left
organization founded by LaRouche. At the time, it
was attracting many organic progressive leaders
from the welfare, trade union, and electoral
arenas. Dr. Newman was one of those who joined.
He and his colleagues' membership in the NCLC
lasted approximately two months. "
"Following their departure in the summer of 1974,
they began an extensive political and
methodological critique of LaRouche and the NCLC
and by 1975 became among the first on the Left to
explicitly identify LaRouche as a neo-fascist. "
This characterization of the Newman/LaRouche
relationship is at best self-serving and at worst
largely fictional. With some ten percent of the
current NAP executive board comprised of persons
who at one time chose to put themselves under the
political leadership of Lyndon LaRouche, it
becomes crucial to examine the relationship
carefully.
During most of 1974, the NCLC under LaRouche was
primarily attracting middle-class and upper-class
white intellectual students from prestigious
eastern and mid-western college campuses--hardly
a core of trade unionists and welfare recipients
as characterized by Newman's supporters.
A former member of LaRouche's NCLC remembers the
arrival in 1974 of what were called the
"Newmanites:"
"They put themselves under the actual political
leadership of LaRouche for a few months, and we
came to believe that what Newman really wanted
during that period was to act as an understudy to
LaRouche --to learn his methods and techniques of
controlling persons in an organization. "
"The individuals in Newman's group seemed to lack
clarity and political focus and were obsessed
with psychology and sexuality. Newman was clearly
the leader and it was obvious that LaRouche's ego
and Newman's ego were too big to allow them to
work together in the same organization for long. "
While actual membership by New Alliance Party
executive board members in LaRouche's NCLC may
have lasted only a few months, the working
alliance between groups led by LaRouche, Newman
and a third New York political leader named Gino
Parente lasted far longer. Some activists
from New York remember the three groups working
in a loose alliance around issues such as welfare
reform, farm labor, and organizing the working
class for a period as long as one year. One
internal NCLC discussion of the Newmanites
describes "ten months of serious political
discussion" before several months of actual
membership. "Joint forums" between the Newmanites
and the LaRouchites were held in November and
December, 1973, and the Newmanite split took
place in late August, 1974.
Even after officially leaving NCLC in August,
1974, Newman and his followers continued to
debate and criticize LaRouche and the NCLC over
issues of shared political ideology as if it
represented legitimate leftist theory long after
the rest of the American Left had denounced NCLC
as either proto-Nazi Brownshirts, a sick
political cult, or outright police agents.
Fred Newman insists his group was not
sophisticated about the American Left when it
joined with LaRouche, yet when the Newmanites
split from NCLC, they announced the formation of
a "vanguard" Marxist-Leninist political party. In
the resignation letter signed by Newman and 38 of
his followers, there is a significant use of
Marxist-Leninist terminology which suggests a far
greater degree of political sophistication than
admitted. Announcing that Newman's International
Workers Party (IWP) had "now become the vanguard
party of the working class," the letter went on
to say:
"The organization of the vanguard party is, as
Marx makes clear, the organization of the class.
The formation of the IWP has grown from our
attempt to organize the [NCLC] from within that
it might move from a position of left hegemony to
a position of leadership of the class. "
When joining the NCLC, Newman announced he was
putting himself and his followers under the
political "hegemony" of LaRouche. After leading
his followers out of the NCLC, Newman continued
to struggle with LaRouche over theory within the
principles of criticism among friends. None of
this indicates a casual, naive or short-lived
relationship.
The Nature of NCLC During the Newmanite
Alliance
Still, Newman's merger and split with LaRouche
would have little merit as a criticism of NAP
(after all it is a sign of political maturity to
recognize mistakes) were it not for how
supporters of Newman relentlessly misrepresent
the nature of LaRouche and the NCLC in late 1973
and 1974--the period when Newman grew close to
NCLC and then put himself and his followers under
the political leadership of LaRouche.In 1974 NCLC
was not attracting "organic progressive leaders "
from the welfare rights movement, as claimed by
the Newmanites. In fact, it was having trouble
attracting significant Black support at all,
since it was leading a successful attempt to
destroy the Black-led National Welfare Rights
Organization and defame its popular leader, the
late George Wiley.
During the same period, LaRouche also propounded
ideas which were widely perceived to represent
outright racism. LaRouche, for instance,
offended the Hispanic community in a November,
1973 essay (published in both English and
Spanish) titled "The Male Impotence of the
Puerto-Rican Socialist Party." An internal memo
by LaRouche asked "Can we imagine anything more
viciously sadistic than the Black Ghetto mother?"
He described the majority of the Chinese people
as "approximating the lower animal species" by
manifesting a "paranoid personality....a parallel
general form of fundamental distinction from
actual human personalities."
As early as the spring of 1973 LaRouche had begun
to articulate a psychosexual theory of political
organizing and began descending into a paranoid
style of historical analysis that stressed not
Marxist dialectical materialism and class
analysis, but macabre conspiracy theories and a
subjective egocentric analysis. LaRouche warned
of a global plot by the CIA/KGB to kidnap and
program his membership to assassinate him. His
homophobia became a central theme of the
organization's conspiracy theories. He said
women's feelings of degradation in modern society
could be traced to the physical placement of
sexual organs near the anus which caused them to
confuse sex with excretion.
A September, 1973 editorial in the NCLC
ideological journal charged that
"Concretely, all across the USA., there are
workers who are prepared to fight. They are held
back, most immediately, by pressure from their
wives...." Writing in an August, 1973 memo,
LaRouche propounded the startling and sexist
psychological theory that "the principle source
of impotence, both male and female, is the
mother." LaRouche claimed only he could cure the
political and sexual impotence of his followers.
NCLC members were forced into what was called
psychological therapy and "deprogramming" but
were what former members call "brainwashing" and
"ego-stripping" sessions. The NCLC rapidly became
totalitarian in style, with a peculiar obsession
with sexuality and homophobia used as a weapon
against internal dissent. "To the extent that my
physical powers do not prevent me," LaRouche told
his followers in August, 1973, "I am now
confident and capable of ending your
political--and sexual--impotence; the two are
interconnected aspects of the same problem."
By 1974 LaRouche had started his swing toward
fascist economic and political principles--well
before Newman and his followers joined NCLC and
announced that they would place themselves under
LaRouche's political leadership and "hegemony."
It was during this period that LaRouche began
talking of the need for rapid industrialization
to build the working class. He talked of a
historic tactical alliance between
revolutionaries, the working class and the forces
of industrial capital against the forces of
finance capital. He began developing an
authoritarian world view with a glorification of
historic mission, metaphysical commitment and
physical confrontation. He told reporters that
only he was capable of bringing revolution and
socialism to the United States, and his speeches
began to take on the tone and style of a
demagogue. LaRouche, in short, began to adopt the
same ideas and styles which had formed the basis
of National Socialism, a political tendency that
historically became part of the European fascist
movement and eventually played a key role in
Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany. In fact,
LaRouche was denounced as a Nazi by U.S.
Communists following physical attacks on them in
1973 by NCLC members who were likened to
Hitler's violent Brownshirts.
>From May to September of 1973, LaRouche followers
engaged in "Operation Mop-up" which consisted of
NCLC members brutally assaulting rivals such as
members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and
the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). NCLC thugs
used bats, chains, and martial arts weapons
() in their campaign to control and
establish "hegemony" over the American
revolutionary movement. There were many injuries
and some persons required hospitalization.
"Operation Mop-up" was front-page news in
virtually every American progressive newspaper
during 1973, and it is difficult to believe it
was not known to Newman and his followers when
they first contacted NCLC a few weeks after
Operation Mop-Up was declared a success by
LaRouche. Furthermore, physical assaults by NCLC
members against critics were reported regularly
well into 1976, and periodic assaults by LaRouche
fundraisers still occur. In 1974, many former
NCLC members report, they were still required to
take paramilitary training classes led by fellow
members.
The trigger for Operation Mop Up was a March,
1973 warning by NCLC to the Communist Party, USA.
to stop opposing the creation by LaRouche of an
alternative to the Black-led National Welfare
Rights Organization (NWRO) which LaRouche
denounced as being part of a "union-busting
slave-labor" alliance. LaRouche set up an
alternative, the National Unemployed and Welfare
Rights Organization (NUWRO), and, according to
LaRouche, NCLC then sent delegations into public
Communist Party meetings, "demanding that this
criminal behavior of the CP leadership"--that is,
support for the original NWRO--"be openly
discussed and voted down by the body assembled."
Eyewitnesses recall this "discussion" usually
consisted of primarily-white and young NCLC
members standing up and disrupting meetings of
the primarily-Black and older NWRO with calls for
a debate on LaRouche's charges against NWRO
leaders until members of the audience were forced
to physically drag the NCLC members out of the
meeting. These confrontations became formalized
under Operation Mop-Up.
When the Socialist Workers Party joined in
supporting the original Black-led NWRO, they too
were attacked by the predominantly white NCLC
supporters. While the Operation Mop-Up attacks
were officially ended in late 1973 or early 1974,
another campaign of assaults was launched in 1974
against local rank-and-file leaders of the United
Autoworkers and other industrial unions. Reports
of these assaults continued through 1976, and
NCLC members have continued until recently to
assist in assaults on members of Teamsters for a
Democratic Union and another rank-and-file
Teamster reform group, PROD.
In 1974, according to former NCLC members,
LaRouche first began to seek contact with
extremist and anti-Semitic right-wing groups and
individuals around the idea of tactical unity in
opposing imperialism and the ruling class in
general, and the Rockefellers in particular.
LaRouche's obsession with conspiracy theories
blossomed in 1974, and during this period he
began expounding a view linking certain Jewish
institutions to a plot to destroy Western
civilization and usher in a "New Dark Age".
This is the character of the NCLC that attracted
Newman and his followers in early 1974. In his
1974 book , Newman wrote
that his followers would "organize in the spirit
outlined" by LaRouche. The question is not how
long the Newmanites worked under the political
leadership of Lyndon LaRouche, but how they can
explain what attracted Newman and his followers
to LaRouche in the first place. To this day NAP
leadership has refused to renounce or to deal
candidly or accurately with the fact that the
Newmanites at one time joined an organization
which was at best a collection of paranoid sexist
homophobic thugs and at worst a nascent fascist
political movement.
Using the FBI to Harass Dissidents
It was during the period that the Newmanites were
involved with NCLC that NCLC began to collect and
disseminate intelligence on progressive groups.
It is well documented that NCLC went on to
provide intelligence to domestic and foreign
government agencies. While documents released
under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that
U.S. government agencies frequently dismissed the
material provided by the NCLC, it was provided
nonetheless. As early as February, 1974, NCLC
representatives met with an official in the U.S.
Department of Commerce to "provide substantial
evidence which would exonerate President Nixon
from Watergate charges," according to a Commerce
Department memorandum released under the Freedom
of Information Act.
The Newmanites were at the center of the first
documented instance of NCLC collaboration with
U.S. intelligence agencies. In 1974, several
Newmanites in NCLC attempted to use the FBI to
locate and spy on a former Newmanite who had left
at the time of the NCLC/Newmanite merger and
taken his child with him. Jim Retherford had left
the Newmanites citing psychological manipulation
among other reasons. His spouse, Ann Green,
remained in the organization and quite reasonably
sought access to their child. Green and Newmanite
Harry Kresky, an attorney, contacted the FBI and
suggested that Retherford was a former member of
the Weatherman faction of SDS, had harbored
Weather Underground fugitives, and was in contact
with Jane Alpert, a fugitive the FBI was
particularly keen on locating.
Supporters of Newman claim he was unaware of the
contact with the FBI. However, a former member of
Newman's Centers for Change who joined and left
NCLC with Newman, and then later split with the
Newmanites, recalls the FBI incident was widely
known within NCLC and the Newmanite faction. "The
CFC [Centers for Change/Newmanite] people for the
most part stuck together while in the
NCLC....denying Fred Newman knew about the
communications with the FBI is utterly absurd."
The International Workers Party
After leaving the NCLC, Newman formed the
International Workers Party (IWP). The Newmanite
document issued upon their leaving NCLC and
establishing the International Workers Party
re-affirms a commitment to carry out current and
future joint work with the LaRouche organization.
The charge of a direct and ongoing LaRouche
connection to the Newmanites, however,
appears to be speculation--no credible reports of
a direct connection between Newman and LaRouche
since the mid-1970's have been documented, and it
is unlikely that any such relationship exists
today.
Manipulative and Confrontational Style
In many ways the theory, ideology, strategy,
tactics, and internal organizing practices of the
LaRouchites and the Newmanites are very similar:
*** A methodological link between the
psychological and the political which forms both
a theoretical world-view and a justification for
indoctrinating members through so-called
"therapy".
*** Psychologically coercive techniques to
manipulate members' views and actions.
*** Organizing strategies that target according
to stratas or sectors rather than social class.
*** Attempts to establish hegemonic relationships
with other similar political groups, and, failing
that, attempts to undermine the group and
establish parallel organizations.
*** Virulent and unprincipled attacks on critics,
including insults, agent-baiting, threats by
attorneys and defamation lawsuits.
*** A shared political strategy (vanguardism with
roots in Trotskyist political theory).
*** Re-writing of the group's political and
organizational history to meet current needs.
*** A closed and covert hierarchical internal
structure that is not necessarily congruent with
the public organizational structure.
*** Differentiation between internal in-group and
external out-group reality, use of propoganda,
and implementation of a "secret-society"
style--all markedly similar to that of a
totalitarian movement.
These similarities do not change the fact that
LaRouchite philosophy is apparently neo-fascist
while Newmanite philosophy is apparently
left-progressive, but it does mean that
internally both groups have an authoritarian
hierarchy whose existence is denied, and both
groups rely on psychologically-manipulative
theories to control core members. Both groups
match a cult paradigm and are far from
democratic, despite outward claims and
appearances.
It is crucial to note the relationship of
LaRouche, Parente, and Newman during the early
1970's in light of their subsequent activities.
All three white male political leaders saw
Marxist revolution through the prism of
ego-mania, and used psychologically manipulative
techniques to enforce obedience in the
institutions they have built--institutions which
sought political hegemony over other groups.
All three groups share many elements of a
totalitarian movement as outlined by Hanna Arendt
in . In recent
years there has been a revisionist interpretation
of Arendt's work, linking nazism and communism as
two sides of the same ideological coin, or
claiming that all communist or Marxist movements
are totalitarian, or that only nazi and communist
ideologies can become totalitarian. Arendt
specifically repudiates this simplistic
interpretation of her work when she writes
"...ideologies of the nineteenth century are not
in themselves totalitarian," and that although
fascism and communism became "the decisive
ideologies of the twentieth century they were
not, in principle, any `more totalitarian' than
others." According to Arendt, the ideological
victory of fascism and communism over other
twentieth century belief structures was "decided
before the totalitarian movements took hold of
precisely these ideologies" as a vehicle for
seizing and holding state power.
A totalitarian movement is correctly defined by
its style, structure and methods not by its
stated or apparent ideology.
The Intellectual Vanguard
The early theoretical writings of LaRouche and
the early and current theoretical writings of
Newman reflect a derivative (and heretical) form
of Trotskyist Marxism that is both unusual and
virtually unique on the American Left. This
shared theory is best described as an aberrant
"Messianic" form of Trotskyism with an
ego-centric view of the importance of the
individual leader in shaping history, coupled
with a patronizing "noblesse oblige" approach to
organizing the working class and people of color
that reflects a political colonialist mentality.
Journalist Dennis King has studied numerous
internal documents from the Newmanites and
concluded that in terms of their political theory
of organizing, they make a crucial distinction
between the core cadre (primarily white
intellectuals) and the "organic" members
(primarily people of color). According to King,
the primarily-white intellectual vanguard trained
by Newman through "therapy" is in the process of
using "therapy" to raise the consciousness of the
primarily Black and Latino recruits so that some
day in the future they will have the wherewithal
to actually lead the organization...but not yet.
King has described this as "paternalistic
racism."
Institutes for Social Therapy
Dr. Fred Newman's doctorate is not in a
health-related field, but in the philosophy of
science and foundations of mathematics. For
several years psychologists and groups concerned
about cults have questioned the ethics of the
process used by the Institutes for Social
Therapy. These criticisms are crystallized in the
following statement by an East Coast Latina
activist working in the area of support for
Central Americans:
"I first came into contact with the Social
Therapy Institutes through a friend who...said
there was a group that offered therapy for people
with progressive views, so I went to see what
they offered."
"I was told everybody has problems, which is true
everyone does, but they use that as an excuse to
recruit people. People with emotional problems
think they are going to be helped but they don't
help people. "
"Before or after the therapy session, they would
say `why not sell the newspaper', or `maybe you
could do us a favor and hand out these leaflets.'
The therapy offices are full of their political
propaganda. In the group therapy sometimes we
discussed politics and their political party.
They want people to get involved in their
political activities, but they don't really give
any treatment. This was something I didn't like. "
"Some people get involved because they think the
political work will help them get better
emotionally. They told us societal problems are
making people ill and the New Alliance Party is
going to change things so people will get better. "
"They got angry with me when I asked for
individual therapy. `You need group therapy not
individual therapy', I was told, so I left. Then
they started sending me literature about their
political organizations. "
"In the literature and in the therapy sessions
they try to destroy any other left organization
by saying bad things about it. They also destroy
a progressive organization by recruiting away its
members. "
"They call themselves Leftists but they use the
dialectic method just to recruit people. When you
get involved there is no dialectic, it is static,
they don't progress beyond the criticism of the
other group. They have no real program, they just
say `if you are not with NAP you are the enemy'.
They raise a lot of money by saying they are
doing all these things, but they are a fraud. "
"It is not true that there is no pressure to work
with the New Alliance Party when you are in the
therapy. They tell you if you are working with
them you will feel good. I said `I need help, I
need individual therapy'. Instead they had me
assisting them in the group therapy sessions. "
"They don't like it if you pay a low fee and
don't work for them politically, such as doing
propaganda work for the New Alliance Party. If
you pay more, you get a better work position in
the organization. If you can afford a lot, you
can get individual therapy. Everything is money
or power. "
"Some people are fooled, especially the
uneducated or emotionally ill, they use them. It
is disgusting. They don't care about people--they
want numbers: more money, more people, more
power. The social therapy is just an excuse to
recruit members. It is just like their many other
activities, concerts, rallies, they are active in
many areas, but they accomplish nothing."
Certainly it is legitimate as part of
psychological counseling to recommend that a
person become involved directly in the
community--even to the extent of becoming part of
a political movement. But for a patient to know
the therapist is involved in a particular
political movement is to consciously or
unconsciously steer the patient, who is in a
dependent and fragile relationship with the
therapist, toward that political movement. This
error is compounded by the fact that, according
to several Therapy Institute staff members, a
portion of the fees for the therapy go to support
the work of the New Alliance Party.
Therapy centers with ties to the New Alliance
Party include the following locations listed in
the November 27, 1987 issue of the :
New York: Harlem Institute for Social Therapy and
Research; Bronx Institute for Social Therapy and
Research; South Bronx Annex; West Side Social
Therapy Network; East Side Center for Short Term
Therapy; Brooklyn Institute for Social Therapy
and Research; Long Island Institute for Social
Therapy and Research.
Massachusetts: Boston Institute for Social
Therapy and Research.
Illinois: Chicago Center for Crisis
Normalization.
California: Los Angeles Center for Crisis
Normalization.
Pennsylvania: Social Therapy Associates.
Washington, D.C.: Washington Center for Crisis
Normalization.
Mississippi: Jackson Center for Crisis
Normalization.
New Jersey: New Jersey Center for Crisis
Normalization.
Cultism
Chicago-based political consultant Don Rose
summed up the feelings of some NAP critics when
he told columnist Basil
Talbot that NAP "is a left group with the modus
of a cult." Talbot noted that critics call NAP
the "LaRouchies of the Left." Several cult
watchdog groups list the Newmanites as a cult,
other critics say the core of the cult is the
Therapy Institute, while a few critics think the
entire NAP movement displays cult aspects. Those
that say the Newmanite movement is totalitarian
in style feel the word cult is superfluous, since
totalitarian groups by definition enforce a high
level of blind loyalty and unquestioning
obedience.
As early as 1977, journalist Dennis King was
writing of the cult-like nature of the
Newmanites, and interviewed Frank Touchet, a New
York professional psychotherapist who studies
therapy cults such as the Reichians and the
Sullivanians. After studying the therapy group
which forms the core of Newman's followers,
Touchet concluded:
"What you are dealing with is people who have
been criminally tampered with in the deepest
fibers of their being, and who have descended
into a strange childlike world of dependency, in
which the rational functions of the ego are
relinquished completely to Fred Newman--who
regulates their lives on the most intimate level. "
It is difficult to resolve the issue of
psychological manipulation because there are
undoubtedly NAP supporters who are sincere and
genuine in their beliefs and have no connection
to the Newmanites, the IWP nor the Social Therapy
Institutes. Still, most of the functional core
leadership of NAP has a connection to the Therapy
Institutes and the Newmanite political
philosophy. Ultimately the question of
psychological manipulation, cultism and cult of
personality can only be resolved by each person
who comes into contact with NAP on the basis of
the individual practice and process observed, and
within the framework of one's own sensitivity to
and wariness about cultism.
Opportunism
One example of what critics call the political
opportunism of the Newmanites and the New
Alliance Party is their continuing effort to
imply a connection with Rev. Jesse Jackson and
the Rainbow Coalition. For instance the
Newmanites have established in Washington, D.C.
the "Rainbow Lobby" billed as "The Lobbying
Office of the Rainbow Alliance." The Rainbow
Lobby has offices at 236 Massachusetts Avenue,
N.E., and lists Nancy Ross as Executive Director
and Tamara Weinstein as Assistant Director.
The Rainbow Lobby office has been frequently
mistaken for the Washington office of Jesse
Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, a mistake that in
the past, NAP leadership seems to have gone out
of its way not to clarify. Newspaper articles
have appeared about NAP's Rainbow Lobby in which
throughout, the reporter assumes the Rainbow
Lobby represents Jackson and the Rainbow
Coalition--a circumstance NAP leadership could
have easily avoided by explaining upfront that
the two groups are unrelated.
Jackson has had to publicly distance himself and
the Rainbow Coalition from NAP and its Rainbow
Alliance and Rainbow Lobby on several occasions.
Most recently Jackson told
reporter Basil Talbot that "we have no
relationship at all."
In the June 21, 1985 issue of the , an article on the Rainbow Alliance
shows how artfully the question of a relationship
has been dodged in the past:
"Hostile critics and curious allies are forever
saying to Nancy Ross, "Does Jesse Jackson support
what you're doing?" "
"Ross, who heads the Washington office of the
Rainbow Alliance Confederation's lobbying arm,
has learned how to respond to such inquiries. "
> The point is not whether Jesse Jackson
> supports me, but whether I support Jesse
> Jackson," says Ross, a founder of the
> six-year-old independent New Alliance Party, and
> candidate for Jackson delegate in Harlem in 1984.
> "And I support Jesse completely because of the
> social vision he has articulated on behalf of the
> Rainbow movement. Yes, I have real differences
> with Jesse--he thinks independent politics is
> `prophetic' whereas I believe its time has come
> right now--but I won't allow anyone to sever the
> historic ties between Jesse and myself, because I
> am committed to see that his vision of a just
> society be brought about today."
While admittedly clever, the above explanation is
essentially a dishonest misrepresentation of the
facts, designed to confuse the issue and suggest
a connection where none exists. The confusion
over support from Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow
Coalition is exacerbated by how the New Alliance
Party describes itself. The February 13, 1987
edition of the newspaper
contained a centerfold spread with the
multi-color slogan "The Real Rainbow" spanning
the two pages. A letter on New Alliance Party
stationery to gay activists on the west coast had
the slogan "The Party of the Rainbow." A petition
calling for an independent Black Presidential
campaign was titled "An Open Letter To Reverend
Jesse Jackson."
Ironically, in a 1983 issue of the Newmanite
theoretical journal , Newman attacked
Jesse Jackson and Jackson's progressive
supporters in strong terms:
"The U.S. ultra-Left has traditionally suffered
very badly from a mental disorder perhaps best
identified as premature vanguardulation. There
has, over the past few years, been a positive
attempt by some to rectify this problem (called
by some friendly left critics `wrecktification')
which, however, has dealt mainly with the
symptoms of the disease by essentially helping
the `client' to feel more comfortable
masturbating. Hence, some of the rectified
ultra-left--for example supporters of `Jesse
Jackson, Democrat'--are smilingly convincing
themselves these days that it is alright to unite
with Jackson's `progressive aspects'. Many have
raised questions as to which part of Jackson's
political anatomy embodies his `progressive
aspects.' "
At the end of 1987 the
newspaper column by Rainbow Lobby Executive
Director Nancy Ross began to include a disclaimer
which reads:
"The Rainbow Lobby is an independent citizens'
lobby based in Washington, D.C. which supports
important legislation that affects civil, human,
voting and democratic rights at home and abroad.
For more information on the Lobby, please contact
Nancy Ross at 236 Massachusetts Ave., N.E., Suite
409, Washington, D.C. 20002 (202) 543-8324. "
"The Rainbow Lobby, Inc. is an independent lobby,
not affiliated with the Rainbow Coalition, Inc. "
The disclaimer began appearing during the same
time period that NAP launched the campaign of
Lenora Fulani for President. During 1987 the NAP
began to publicly attack the Rainbow Coalition
and in the Lenora Fulani
was quoted as saying "With all due respect to
Brother Jesse Jackson, almost everyone knows he
hasn't built a real Rainbow. He might have
incorporated something called the National
Rainbow Coalition, Inc., but he hasn't built a
Rainbow. "
Despite the criticisms and disclaimers, there is
still much public confusion concerning the
relationship of NAP to the Rainbow Coalition, and
Jackson's Presidential candidacy. This confusion
is not alleviated by NAP public statements. For
instance in the November 20, 1987 issue of the
, William Pleasant attacks
the Rainbow Coalition as "the Democratic Party's
left wing", but then writes that
"Fulani, under her `Two Roads Are Better Than
One' plan, backs Reverend Jesse Jackson in the
Democratic Party primaries. But she has done
everything possible to ensure that the
progressive Rainbow agenda will be carried
through to the general election in November...."
Smearing Critics
Among the most persistent critics of the New
Alliance Party are freelance writer Dennis King
of New York, the author of this study, Chip
Berlet (and other members of the Public Eye
Network), and two researchers who often work
closely together, Ken Lawrence of Mississippi and
Dan Stern of Illinois. In 1985 Ken Lawrence and
Dan Stern provided information on NAP to Charles
Tisdale, publisher of the
newspaper in Mississippi. Tisdale ran a series of
articles critical of Newman and NAP in the
, which for many years has served as
a voice for Black residents in the area.
In response to the articles, NAP
embarked on a smear campaign against its
critics--a tactic it frequently employs. An
article by William Pleasant in NAP's newspaper attacked Tisdale, Lawrence,
Stern and Berlet. A photograph of Tisdale (who is
Black) is accompanied by a bold headline which
reads: "Jackson Advocate publisher Charles
Tisdale: The Advocate has come to play the role
of a Black front for a national network that is a
nesting place for agents."
The same article claims that Dennis King and Chip
Berlet have shown "a willingness to relent on
their earlier false and sectarian charges of
LaRouche affiliation or cultism." (In fact, both
Berlet and King still stand by their earlier
charges.) Ken Lawrence and Dan Stern are
described as "absorbed in another agenda, beyond
sectarianism, bordering on straight out
provocateurism." NAP organizers also began
circulating charges that Ken Lawrence was a
government agent.
When Tisdale refused to back down from his
criticisms of NAP, and continued to detail the
charges of other NAP critics, NAP chairwoman
Emily Carter responded by filing a defamation
lawsuit against Tisdale, the
and Ken Lawrence. (A judge subsequently ordered
Lawrence dropped from the lawsuit). After the
lawsuit was filed, when well-known organizer Flo
Kennedy accepted an invitation to speak at a
banquet sponsored by the , a
self-described NAP member disrupted a press
conference with her by shouting "You're a very
stupid woman." Other critics of NAP are
frequently ridiculed or attacked in an
unprincipled manner.
Penetration and Disruption of Rival Groups
Critics of the Newmanites claim one of the
tactics used by the group is to penetrate a
progressive organization and seek to take it over
or recruit away its membership. One of the themes
in the series on NAP was the
frequency with which NAP engaged in what critics
considered disruptive tactics. Lily Mae Irwin, a
well-known welfare rights activist told the
how, in 1985, NAP tried to merge
with the group she was leading, the Mississippi
Welfare Rights Organization. After she refused
the merger idea, she soon discovered NAP was
scheduling their meetings with her key organizers
opposite the regular monthly Welfare Rights
Organization meetings. "Yes Siree," said Irwin,
"they were trying to hold meetings at the same
time we were; they were trying to mess us up."
Eddie Sandifer, a well-known Mississippi Gay
rights activist, told the he
resented the claim by NAP that it is the party of
gays, lesbians, Blacks and dispossessed people in
general. In particular, Sandifer was angry that
NAP contacted several members of the Mississippi
Gay Alliance and invited them to NAP meetings,
but did not contact him, the group's leader. "I
think their purpose is to divide and conquer,"
said Sandifer. "I'm very suspicious of
them....I'm worried about what they are doing in
Mississippi."
A long-time gay activist in California voiced
similar concerns to the author after NAP
sponsored a gay rights conference in that state.
He feared the NAP wanted to duplicate the work of
existing gay organizations as a way to build
credibility and recruit new members for the NAP.
A woman activist in New York told the author of a
call she received from a friend in England
complaining of disruptive activities by a NAP
organizer who attended functions of a women's
peace group. Disruption has been a hallmark of
NAP organizing for years, and reports of this
nature have been consistently surfaced over the
years from a wide variety of sources.
One early example of a Newmanite attempt to
penetrate and manipulate a progressive
organization involved the now-defunct People's
Party, a multi-racial progressive electoral party
which once ran Dr. Benjamin Spock for President.
In early 1978, according to a former People's
Party organizer, the People's Party "expelled the
Newmanites when it was uncovered that they were
operating within the party as a secret faction
with an undisclosed agenda as to their intentions
and plans."
The Newmanites had told members of the People's
Party that Newman's International Workers Party
had been disbanded, but the People's Party
stumbled across a secret Newmanite newsletter
marked "confidential internal bulletin" and
bearing the name . According to
, the Newmanites were
recruiting inside the People's Party and other
progressive groups to build a secret
"pre-party formation." The confidential Newmanite
newsletter explained it was being published to
"function as intelligence and communications
networks, reporting on the social movement of
various strata in particular areas.
Even though the IWP was supposed to have
dissolved, plans were sketched out in for its "Fourth Party Plenary" held
in Gary, Indiana in early 1977. The meeting
brought together representatives from various
Newmanite front groups organized under the public
banner of the "Council of Independent
Organizers."
Depth of Black Leadership
The New Alliance Party does engage in activities
which support Black candidates, as the following
excerpt from a letter by NAP supporters points
out:
"In 1984, after campaigning for Reverend Jesse
Jackson and witnessing his public rejection at
the Democratic National Convention in San
Francisco, NAP moved ahead with its independent
Presidential campaign for the Afro-American
candidate Dennis L. Serrette in a record-breaking
33 states where the party had managed to secure
access to the ballot. "
What the letter fails to mention is that Serrette
left the New Alliance Party after unsuccessfully
struggling for a meaningful leadership role for
Black NAP officials who he felt had
organizational titles but no real influence or
control. At first, Serrette, as a point of
personal and political principle, refused to
openly criticize NAP, but when it became obvious
NAP leaders were characterizing his reasons for
leaving as primarily personal, and implying that
Serrette continued to support NAP, Serrette went
public with his charges in Mississippi's newspaper.
"I left the party because it continued to claim
it was Black-led--I knew better," Serrette is
quoted as saying in the . "I
mean no harm to these powerful Black women, Emily
Carter, Lenora Fulani and Barbara Taylor, when I
say that....I knew from being there that they
were not leading Fred Newman--he was leading
them--that's why I left....I don't feel they can
use `Black-led' continuously without falling on
their faces--falsehoods just won't hold up under
close scrutiny."
According to Serrette, NAP had no real commitment
to Black-led independent politics. "I had to
think about my reputation then--of people who
continue to believe in me." After raising his
criticisms internally, Serrette said he was cut
off from the flow of information within the
party. "It got so I didn't know when they were
holding meetings or anything," said Serrette.
In the course of the lawsuit by Emily Carter
against the , Dennis Serrette
was called by Carter's attorney to answer
questions in a deposition. Serrette thoroughly
denounced Newman and his followers as running a
racist, sexist "therapy cult" that put people of
color in public leadership positions merely as
window dressing. Regarding the New Alliance
Party, Serrette said:
"...I don't believe that it's organic...in terms
of it being a working-class movement...Black,
white and Latino. I think it's an elitist
organization. It certainly serves the purposes of
its leader....it was a lie, it was clearly a
tactical ...a racist scheme of using Black and
Latino and Asian people to do the bidding of one
man, namely Fred Newman, that's my opinion, and
to use other whites as well, you know through the
therapy practices. "
"No one challenges Fred Newman. I have seen
people maybe raise a few polite questions
in...planning sessions...but Fred Newman's word
is the word. There is no such thing as opposition
within that organization, or principled
opposition, that in my opinion could demonstrate
a different will or challenge to power, a
different political position of a major order,
unless he agreed with it in some way. "
Serrette said he came to believe the promise that
the organization would eventually be turned over
to Black people was a lie, and he challenged
Newman on the point:
"And I stated to him, "turned over" means, you
know, resources, it means making policy, it means
running personnel...that's Black control to me. I
don't understand it as just having a Black face
in a high place. That's nothing more than racism
and nothing more than window dressing. "
"It's no different from the system we seem to
fight in this case. So I raised those questions
to Fred and we had ... a very heated meeting. It
was a meeting in which many of the Black
leadership was there. "
"It was very intense. We had Lenora [Fulani]
making criticisms...Emily [Carter] making
criticisms, there was a lot of folks making
criticisms of some of the racism that they
heretofore hadn't mentioned to Fred, but had told
me and told other Blacks in a whisper type kind
of way, the times that we were together...and
they came forward. "
Shortly after that meeting, according to
Serrette, his stature and treatment by other NAP
leaders changed dramatically. Serrette said he
was not opposed to therapy on principle since he
believed many people are helped by other forms of
therapy. But therapy played a different role
inside NAP according to Serrette:
"...therapy was a way of getting people to not
only operate in an organizational way, but also a
way of controlling every aspect of their
lives...you certainly couldn't straighten anybody
out. But it was certainly effective in terms of
controlling a lot of people to do the kinds of
things that were asked of them...they would do
anything, just about, that he would ask them to
do. "
"I wouldn't even be surprised if they'd turn from
a so-called left organization to a right-wing
organization with a blink of an eye. I think that
the ideological question that is supposedly
the thrust of who they call themselves,
International Workers' Party, there's nothing
more than a front itself. "
"I certainly believe that [of] the New Alliance
Party, and when I say "front," I just mean it's
the cover to cover, possibly the ego of Fred
Newman and the control of so many individuals in
terms of power. "
Serrette also said the therapy was not voluntary
and that one Newman associate made this clear:
"She said that it was an order that if you wanted
to be part of this organization, you will have to
take therapy because it is the backbone of our
tendency...she says that comes as an order...from
the governing body. "
Support for Minister Farrakhan
When Minister Louis Farrakhan addressed a New
York City rally of his supporters in 1985, he was
greeted with a telegram of support from the then
NAP mayoral candidate Dr. Lenora Fulani:
"It is with deep respect and the most profound
commitment to the liberation of our people that I
welcome you to New York City, hopeful that your
visit will bring us, as Black people, the
leadership of all this country's oppressed, a
step closer to our freedom. "
NAP at the time was seeking "a working
relationship with Farrakhan's Nation of Islam,"
and members of both groups had attended each
others' conferences. Fulani was not unaware of
the controversial nature of some of Farrakhan's
remarks regarding Jewish people and other groups.
"I remain concerned that Minister Farrakhan's
language can be interpreted as anti-Semitic or
anti-gay. But I know, as do my Jewish friends and
followers, that the Jewish people have nothing to
fear from the Nation of Islam."
Minister Farrakhan's language is indeed a cause
for concern, as are the actions of his
organization. In Chicago, representatives of the
Nation of Islam invited the author of a book
calling the Nazi Holocaust a hoax to share their
stage with other special guests. Members of
anti-Jewish white racialist groups have been
invited to attend Nation of Islam events.
Representatives of the Nation of Islam have made
speeches where white racial characteristics have
been held up for ridicule.
It is true that many critics of Minister
Farrakhan treat him in a racist manner. Further,
many of Farrakhan's statements against political
Zionism and the actions of the state of Israel in
the Middle East are, for whatever reason,
incorrectly labeled "anti-Semitic." However there
is ample documentation that Farrakhan regularly
makes references about the Jewish people that
reflect a bigoted and stereotyped bias. This is
not a question of semantics, but a question of
prejudice.
Conclusions
The refusal of the Newmanites to deal
candidly with, and accept criticism for, the
LaRouche period--no matter how short-lived--and
the attempt to provoke the FBI to target a former
member and critics, will continue to be a valid
issue to raise publicly concerning the New
Alliance Party until that group's leadership
accepts responsibility for the actions of its
founders and current colleagues.
The connection between the leadership of the New
Alliance Party and the Newmanite Social Therapy
centers is manipulative and unethical. So long as
there is such a relationship, the New Alliance
Party must be judged in the context of being a
political moment that lacks clarity concerning
basic moral issues involving personal and
political exploitation. How can a group aspire to
moral and political leadership when with one hand
it reaches out to those in need of emotional
help, and with the other hand points to a related
political organization as a cure?
Finally, the issue of the apparent opportunistic
use of the "Rainbow" slogan is important to
confront. This is especially true in Chicago
where political consultant Don Rose, hardly a
political neophyte, thought a Rainbow Lobby
fundraiser that came to his home was representing
Jesse Jackson until he spotted a name he
recognized as being involved with the Newmanites
on the literature. If a person with political
sophistication can make the mistake, what about
the average citizen? This continued confusion in
the city that provides a base for Jesse Jackson
and the real Rainbow Coalition can only serve to
weaken Jackson's credibility among potential
constituents whose first crucial introduction to
the Rainbow may well be through the distorted
prism of the Newmanites and NAP.

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